


want you safe

by viscrael



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, First Kiss, Gunshot Wounds, M/M, a VERY vague au, vague descriptions of injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-23 01:29:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13179489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viscrael/pseuds/viscrael
Summary: “That’s not what I meant,” Lance says. “I mean, I, um, I wasn’t thinking, but I mean…I think when I saw you, and I saw…what was going to happen, I just sort of…did it. Without thinking. That’s what I mean by that. It was…a sort of gut reaction, I guess.”“Most people don’t have the gut reaction to jump in front of a bullet.”“Most bullets aren’t headed for you.”





	want you safe

**Author's Note:**

> im gonna be real with yall, this was originally written as a characterization exercise for my ocs but i changed the names and some of the dialogue last minute bc i liked it and was sad basically no1 wld understand it. but its ok bc theyre like basically klance naturally anyway so its not like i rlly did much 
> 
> idk what this au is. i think i was originally imagining some kinda zombie or apocalypse au where they wld need to be on the run & always on the look out & wld maybe encounter violence but not the way they do in canon what with being in the middle of a war. but i didnt have many specifics in mind beyond "lance takes a bullet for keith" when writing this so its reallllyyyyy vague lol
> 
> anyway have thsi its 6 am and this is short as fuck

“That was stupid.”

Lance laughs, then winces at the movement. “Yeah, probably.”

Keith glances up then back to where he’s cleaning around the wound with a damp cloth. Day-old bandages lay discarded on the floor at their feet, the blood dried and brown already. The stitches Hunk quickly did for Lance yesterday are helping, but they aren’t particularly fun to look at.

This whole thing isn’t particularly fun, if Keith is being honest.

“Then why’d you do it?” he asks, wiping the blood away gently.

“Because,” Lance says, and then nothing else for a long moment. Keith looks up again, and this time he keeps his gaze there.

Lance is looking somewhere to Keith’s left, his dark eyebrows pinched slightly and beads of sweat forming on his forehead as he obviously avoids eye contact. The past few days have been stressful for everyone, but Lance most of all; this might be the first time he’s ever gotten seriously injured, and it just so happens that it was because he was being stupidly heroic. Keith should be grateful—after all, if Lance hadn’t stepped in front, Keith would’ve gotten much worse than a grazed arm, but as much as he wants to be happy about it, he finds he’s just frustrated.

“You don’t even know why you did it,” he huffs. He pulls the cloth away, the fresh blood cleaned up, and leaves it on the night stand, reaching for new gauze to wrap Lance’s arm back up. They’re trying not to take any chances as far as infections go. “What, you just thought everything would be okay if you—“

“I don’t know _what_ I thought,” Lance interrupts. He looks Keith in the eyes for the first time in two days, and his expression is unlike anything Keith’s seen him wear. It’s jarring. “I don’t…I don’t know that I thought anything. I think…”

He smells like fireplace smoke and the cheap shampoo Keith stole from a hotel a week ago. His expression melts into something more recognizable, a determined but anxious set to his jaw, his eyebrows pinching forward further. Keith doesn’t say anything as he waits for the rest of the sentence, only watching the way Lance’s face changes just so, so subtle he wouldn’t have noticed if they weren’t sitting so close.

“I wasn’t thinking,” Lance says slowly, his eyes never flickering away from Keith’s.

“Glad you admit it,” Keith mumbles. He reaches for Lance’s injured arm and straightens it out, careful not to jostle him too much, before wrapping the gauze. It’s a process that takes two hands, and just as he breaks eye contact for the first time since their showdown began, Lance shifts on the bed.

“That’s not what I meant,” Lance says. “I mean, I, um, I _wasn’t_ thinking, but I mean…I think when I saw you, and I saw…what was going to happen, I just sort of…did it. Without thinking. That’s what I mean by that. It was…a sort of gut reaction, I guess.”

“Most people don’t have the gut reaction to jump in front of a bullet.”

“Most bullets aren’t headed for you.”

The gauze is cheap and running out, but it’s what they have to make do with. He makes sure not to tie it too tight, and since there’s no signal that it hurts, he figures it’s okay. Lance’s proved how quickly he’ll let someone else know if it starts hurting him when he all but screamed at the bandage’s tightness the other day, so Keith’s not too worried that something will go unsaid or fall through the cracks in this regard.

In other regards, though, he’s not so sure.

The idea that someone else took a bullet for _him_ purely _because_ it was him they were protecting leaves…an odd taste in his mouth. He can’t quite tell if it’s all bad or not, but he does know that he’s a little ashamed. A little confused. Never good emotions to cycle through when under high amounts of stress.

“I didn’t ask you to do that,” he says.

“Of course you didn’t _ask_ me to. But even if you could’ve somehow told me not to, I doubt I would’ve listened. I wasn’t trying to piss you off or one up you or whatever you think I was doing. I just wanted you safe.”

Keith pinpoints on the first half of the sentence and ignores the last. “I didn’t think you were trying to one up me.”

“That’s good,” Lance says. “’Cause I wasn’t. But you _did_ think I did it to just make you angry, right?”

“I admit, at first I thought maybe you were disobeying what I told you to do just because I told you not to do it, yeah.” He finishes with the gauze and places it back where it belongs.

“But I wasn’t,” Lance repeats.

“You weren’t,” Keith agrees. “I know. It’s fine. I…”

“Yeah?”

The way Lance says it—so hopeful for... _something_ , something Keith isn’t sure of and isn’t sure he wants to be sure of—makes Keith’s mouth go dry and causes him to falter. It shouldn’t. It’s dumb that it does. But Lance is sitting there, so close to Keith, their bodies inches apart with Lance’s face so open, so vulnerable, like he’d been the other day, so human and so mortal and so capable of dying—and Keith remembers the moment he’d realized Lance had been shot, and the fear that coursed through him. He remembers the expletives he was shouting and the way that Lance didn’t so much as scream, and when he knelt down, all Lance did was comment on how Keith had been grazed by the second bullet instead of worrying about the one lodged in his shoulder. It was weird that Keith noticed then how blue his eyes were, the way he’s noticing it now, with their faces inches apart, their mouths inches apart.

“Thank you,” Keith says. It comes out almost as a whisper. “I…should have said that way earlier. I didn’t want you to put yourself in front of me, but…”

“It was headed for your chest,” Lance says.

“You have no way of knowing that.”

Keith’s eyes flicker to Lance’s lips when they twitch into a small smile. “This is just like you,” he laughs gently. “Ragging on me even when you’re trying to thank me for saving your life.”

“I want you safe too, you know,” Keith says. “You said earlier you just wanted me safe. That’s…not one-sided. You can’t just throw yourself in front a bullet whenever you want, okay? _You_ have to stay alive _with_ me.”

Lance’s eyelids lower until it almost looks like they’re shut, and Keith realizes they’re so close they could press their foreheads together. He doesn’t know that he’s ever been this _close_ to anyone before. It’s almost unnerving, the way he can feel Lance’s steady breathing on his face, and it makes him self-conscious about his own breathing. He’s sure Lance can hear his heart drumming in his chest. He’s never felt this much adrenaline when not in danger before.

Lance’s lips part, just a little.

“I guess I can try,” he says, “if it’ll make you get off my ass about it.”

Keith resists the urge to groan. “You’re ruining it.”

“Ruining what?”

“ _It_.”

He knows Lance’s just messing with him right now, but it’s still annoying. “Don’t know what you mean, you’ll have to be more specific. Sorry, maybe I’m just having a little trouble concentrating, you know, from all the _pain_ caused by that _bullet_ I took for you—“

Keith bridges the few inches left between them. Thankfully, it shuts Lance up.

When they pull away a moment later, Keith whispers a final, “Thank you, asshole” before getting up and fleeing the room as quickly as possible.

 


End file.
